Guest Contribution by Tom Todia

I love Plug-Ins! There, I feel much better now. Since January is the month of the plug-in here at Designing Sound, I thought this was a great opportunity to share one of my new favorites with you.

This plug-in does exactly what its name states but it has a twist that I absolutely love. If you have not yet used it then allow me to introduce you to the “Frequency Shifter”. You will find this little gem as part of the AIR bundle standard with Pro Tools 8 and higher.

I swim in the dark and mysterious water that is game audio. This means that when I produce a sound effect I am often tasked with creating at least half a dozen variations of it. Why isn’t one sound variation enough you ask? Well if you have ever played a Sci-Fi style video game, then you know how often you are likely to hear the same laser gun being fired. Audible repetition is something we try our best to avoid, lest the illusion of the game world be broken. So in that design spirit, let me show you how easily you can create multiple variations of a laser gun with this plug-in without automating a single parameter.